PPC Audit: The Ultimate Checklist [+ FREE Template]

The PPC audit is where we always start for any new project we're taking on.

This article is going to show you exactly how we run PPC audits for hundreds of clients.

💡 Later on we're also going to share a free copy of the exact PPC audit template we use for our clients.

Whether you're an in-house marketer, company owner or external agency, we recommend running a PPC audit every 6 months.

Of course, the very first PPC audit you run on a new account is always going to be the most time-consuming.

After the first one is completed, subsequent audits should be done every 6 months to make sure you're still on the right path and that the account hasn't accidentally swayed away from your original goals. 

Even the best marketers in the World can make mistakes, and that's why having a regular audit system in place is so important - The system allows you to easily spot mistakes, and because it's a checklist, it's easy to go through each particular part.

Auditing high-performing PPC accounts is just as important as auditing ones that are delivering less impressive results. 

However, you may want to increase the frequency of audits on poorly performing accounts. 

We wouldn’t audit an account if we had recently made significant changes to it. That’s because you need to build up a library of data that shows how the changes affect account performance.

For example, if you’ve just built a series of new landing pages, it will take time to gather enough data to show how the changes have impacted performance..

👉 Access our free PPC audit template here.

Most of the questions are yes/no answers, and we also included a notes section for convenience.

This is the exact PPC audit we use at our agency.

Why are you investing in ads in the first place?

Now we have some actionable goals, we need to answer some more financial questions:

1. What is your Net Profit Margin %?
2. What is your Average Order Value?
3. What is your Customer Lifetime Value?
4. What is your current Monthly Revenue?
5. What is your target Monthly Revenue?
6. How many leads does it take you to land a sale? (Services or B2B only)
7. What is your target cost to acquire a customer? (doesn’t have to be exact) 
8. What is your target ROAS? (e.g. 4X)
9. Do you have a target ad budget spend per month?
10. How many monthly conversion are you aiming for?

For the rest of our PPC audit, you simply have to mark 'Yes' or 'No' to each and every one of the questions below.

Of course if you mark 'No' you'll also want to take some notes on why that is, and what you can do to fix it.

We designed our PPC audit template this way to make it very easy to follow along.

1. The account is meeting budget target - 
   • That means to check that we're spending at or around the current budget. 
   • If the answer is yes, then great, there may be scope to increase budget depending on our other answers.
   • If the answer is no, it may be that we're limited by impression-share or just not being expansive enough with our campaigns.
2. The account is hitting the conversion, tCPA or tROAS target -
   • This is a more obvious one - Linked directly to our conversion targets within the account.
   • If the answer is yes, we're hitting our targets, then excellent! 
   • If the answer is no, it's an indication that either something is wrong, or that our tCPA or tROAS targets are too ambitious.
3. Recent performance is consistent (vs Month on Month and/or Year on Year) - 
   • It's important to look at historical performance when auditing your PPC account.
   • Does the pattern look generally consistent? Or have results changed drastically within the last month or the last year? (short term vs. long term)
4. Is the lead quality strong? (for lead-generation accounts only)
   • Run checks on lead quality to ensure they're relevant and good leads.
   • Here you're really just checking to make sure a ton of spam or completely irrelevant leads aren't coming through.
5. No campaign is eating lots of ad spend with minimal results - 
   • The goal of this point is to run a high-level check to ensure that we don't have any outlier campaigns wasting lots of ad budgets.
   • Of course, certain types of discovery campaigns are going to have weaker performance, but this point serves as a sense-check to make sure nothing is drastically wrong.
6. Google automatic recommendations have been reviewed - 
   • Google provides automatic "recommendations" within Google ads, driven by AI.
   • It's important that we have reviewed & sense checked all of those recommendations.
   • If the answer is no, then you should carefully go through each recommendation and decide whether that's something you want to implement.
   • Example recommendations would be to raise your budgets, or to create a performance max campaign. 

1. Budgets are balanced
   • For example, there's a good balance between your top of funnel vs. middle of funnel vs. bottom of funnel campaigns. Read more about the paid search funnel here.
   • We wrote more about budget allocations in this guide.
2. Important campaigns are not limited by budget
   • Google will normally flag up if a campaign is limited by budget.
   • If that's an incredibly well-performing campaign, you may just want to check whether it makes sense to raise that budget or re-allocate budget from other under-performing campaigns.
3. If using shared budgets, there's a good reason for it
   • Google's automation wants to control your overall account budget and pour more money into the campaigns it sees working
   • The problem is, it'll often end up neglecting your top of funnel campaigns because it sees them as having a weaker performance, without looking at the bigger picture (You need discovery so people find your brand!). 

1. Do conversion goals make sense? 
   • Are you tracking clear & obvious macro conversions such as form fills, phone calls and call scheduling? 
   • Are you tracking micro conversions as well such as newsletter signups?
2. Are conversion values / offline conversions being pulled through from CRM?
   • This gives us an even more exact / accurate view of our advertising performance.
3. Is other data e.g. Lead qualification being pulled through from CRM?
   • Are you actively qualifying the leads that are coming in via Google ads?
   • If this information isn't being fed back to Google ads, it will almost certainly be impacting your performance!
4. Attribution model isn't Last-click, unless there's a good reason for it to be.
   • Ensure that the attribution model is data-driven for better accuracy rather than last-click.
5. Conversion goal(s) imported from Google Analytics
   • Make sure that any conversion goal(s) that are present in GA have all been imported into Google Ads.
6. Google Ads conversion tag implemented
   • Test to see that the Google Ads tag has been accurately implemented across the website.
7. Include in ‘Conversions’ is set to Yes on 1 conversion, not both
   • This is important to ensure that you don't count multiple conversions from the same customer.
   • For example, if somebody fills out a form AND phones your business, that should only count as 1 single conversion.
8. [Optional / Not ecommerce] Conversions are set to count once
   • Same logic as above - we only want to count conversions once per user.
9. "Calls from ads" is added as a conversion event.
   • Make sure that any calls that come in directly from the ads themselves (before clicking through to your website) is added as a conversion event.
10. Conversion linker tag is added to GTM
11. Auto-tagging is enabled

Be sure to check the conversions of each campaign to keep an eye out for abnormalities.

• Campaigns with no conversions: This either means you aren’t tracking conversions, or no one is taking you up on your offer. While neither of these options is good, you can fix the former option by repairing your tracking. 
• Campaigns with suspiciously high conversion rates: The higher your conversion rate the better, but a rate that’s too high can suggest you have a tracking problem. Compare the number of conversions shown in your PPC dashboard with actual conversions (sales, email signups, etc.) to confirm whether the rate makes sense. If it doesn’t match, your PPC campaign may be tracking the wrong metrics. For example, it may be counting page visits as conversions rather than sales.
• Identical click and conversion rates: If your click and conversion rates are exactly the same, you’ve probably set your campaign to track visits to your landing page rather than the confirmation page. You’ll need to adjust your tag. Either that or you’re an advertising genius. 

1. There are logical campaign splits
   • For example, campaigns are split by overall primary category or by geographical location. 
2. No Search Display Expansion campaigns
   • Make sure you're not running search display expansion campaigns as default.
   • These will eat up budget and usually drive unqualified leads.
3. Geographic targeting makes sense
   • Just sense-check this point.
   • Make sure you're not targeting any low-value locations or locations you don't serve to.
4. Location options set to "Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations"
   • This lets Google to accurately target the right people.
5. Ad Rotation Settings - Set to "Optimize"
   • This lets Google's machine learning select the best performing ads to the right people.
6. Appropriate bid strategy applied
   • a sense-check to see that the right bidding is applied for each campaign.
7. Ad schedule makes sense
   • For example, an accountant may not want to serve ads on a Saturday night!
   • Keep in mind that nowadays, Google's machine-learning does a better job of serving ads at the right time to maximize conversions.
8. Automatic ad creation turned off
9. Search Partner performance warrants them being enabled
10. Brand negative keyword list exists and applied
    • Make sure that you're not getting unwanted clicks for people searching for similar brand names!

1. Brand campaigns are set to target impression share
   • We want to typically try to maximize the impression share for our own brand! 
   • Especially if competitor's are bidding on our brand as well. 
2. Campaigns using manual bidding are doing so for a good reason
   • Automated bidding (aka smart bidding) will almost always outperform manual bidding.
   • So if you're using a manual bidding strategy, you should have a very good reason!
   • That might include incredibly low amounts of data, or very clear evidence that it has outperformed a smart bidding strategy.
3. Campaigns using smart bidding have good, reliable data
   • If you're using a smart bidding strategy like tCPA or tROAS, you should have sufficient conversion data.
   • We recommend a minimum of 30-50 conversions per month.
   • Any lower than this, and Google's machine learning algorithm will struggle to optimize adequately. 
4. Smart bidding targets are realistic
   • For example, if you know your industry tCPA (target cost per action) is $200, then you shouldn't have it set to $50!
   • This will cause significant underperformance.
   • And in all likelihood, it will cause Google to send you lower value customers as well. 
5. If device bidding restrictions apply, there's a good reason
   • If the account has restricted certain devices, have a good reason why.
   • It's true that some devices will be much more important than others for certain industries, but cutting off an entire device needs a very good reason! 

1. At least 4 Site Links are present
2. At least 6 Callout extensions are present
3. Call extension is present
4. Structured Snippets are presents
5. Logo is present
6. Images are present
7. [Optional] Location extension(s)
8. [Optional] Price extension where appropriate

These little touches can make all the difference in making your business stand out as trustworthy in the search results. 

1. Keywords are divided in a logical and precise way
   • E.G. keywords related to "website development services" all in one ad group.
   • E.G. keywords related to "marketing services" all in one ad group.
2. High impressions and high spend keywords are in tight ad groups of ~5 or less keywords
   • These are your big "moneymaker" keywords.
   • You want to keep them in very tight ad groups!
3. These ad groups are not restricted by budget
   • Your high impression / high spend keywords shouldn't be restricted by budget.
   • They should have more allocation than other ad groups.
4. Other ad groups do not contain a large number of keywords (20+)
   • Outside your "moneymakers" don't include >20 keywords within one ad group
5. Ad extensions have been tailored to (at least) the top performing ad groups
   1. Create custom ad extensions for your top ad groups
   2. That means text, ratings, images that are specifically catered to that ad group

1. Does your target keywords match with your business offer? 
   • This seems incredibly basic, but we've seen countless times businesses bidding on irrelevant keywords.
   • Run a sense-check on all the search terms within Google ads just to make sure keywords don't look out of place.
   • The chances are if you're doing a PPC audit for the first time, you'll find a few issues here.
2. No significant difference between keywords match type and performance
   • So this means for example if you're running a broad-match ad group & an exact-match group, there isn't a huge difference in performance.
   • If there was a big difference in performance, you'll need to carefully review any under-performing ad-groups or campaigns accordingly.
   • It might be that broad match is just generating poor quality leads and that you need to get tight with more exact-match terms.
3. Brand is segmented - yes or no.
   • Ensure you have a separate campaign for branded keywords.
   • Important to have this segmented & separate from everything else.
4. Broad keywords have negatives.
   • Any broad keywords be using should have negative keywords present!
   • This is to make sure Google doesn't start serving ads to irrelevant customers.
   • This can be a particular problem with broad match keywords.
5. Negative keywords are present
   • Ensure that a good selection of negative keywords exist.
   • These are keywords that you do not want to show ads for. 
   • For more inspiration on what negative keywords to add, see this guide.
6. No more than 20 keywords per ad group (including match types)
   • Any more than 20 primary keywords generally means you'll have too many irrelevant keywords in there.
   • Aim for 15-20 keywords maximum in your ad groups, and less in your big "money maker" groups.
   • This will ensure optimal performance.
7. High spend or high volume keywords are showing for relevant search terms
   1. Sense-check the "search terms" report in Google Ads.
   2. Make sure that the search terms Google is serving your ad to are all strongly relevant.
   3. If not, you may need to pause certain keywords or add more negative keywords.
8. High spend and/or volume keywords don't have a low quality score
   1. Google will provide a quality score of 1-10 on the keywords level.
   2. If a keyword has a low quality score it means that Google thinks there is a mis-match between the keyword and your advert / landing page.
   3. If you see anything with a quality score below 7 and that keyword is high-spend, then look into it!
   4. Read more about quality score here.
9. Any unexpected keywords that bring in lots of conversions?
   • If you are running broad match campaigns for long enough, one benefit is that often you'll discover great keywords you didn't know existed before.
   • If you find any of these secret 'winners' in your search terms report, you might want to consider creating a new landing page for them, or moving them into a new dedicated ad group. 

1. Each ad group has a minimum of 2 ads 
   1. Google will automatically serve the best performing ads to the right users.
   2. Having this selection will just give you more chances of success.
2. Ad groups have at least 2 distinct ads
   1. Add in 2 different variations to give Google's AI more ammmunition to work with.
   2. Use different ad copy and calls to action for each.
   3. Try some different headlines within each ad.
3. No spelling or grammar issues
4. Landing page has SSL cert - https://

1. Keywords - If using manual bidding, the best keywords have appropriate bids
2. Keywords - If using manual bidding, the worst keywords either bid low or are paused
3. Device bid adjustments - Check if these are present and consider why
4. Geography bid adjustments - Check if these are present and reasonable
5. Demographics bid adjustments - Check if these are present and reasonable
6. Schedule bid adjustments - Check if these are present and reasonable

1. Remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA): are present in the account
2. Target high-intent audiences: Are audiences segmenteted within your remarketing lists based on user behavior (e.g., abandoned cart, product page visits).
3. Is Smart Bidding in Place for remarketing?
4. Are ads tailored for previous visitors?
5. Are broad keywords present to target prior visitors? (RLSA lets you be more competitive with broader terms.)

1. Landing pages are relevant and well-performing.
2. Landing pages match ad groups and target keywords.
3. Landing page has sufficient testimonials & social proof.
4. Effective Call-to-Action (CTA) implemented.
5. Form optimization and content is aligned.
6. A/B testing is active.
   • You can use tools like Unbounce or Optimizely to test out different versions of pages.

1. Competitor ad copy checked
   • My favorite methodology for this is a manual check.
   • Simply type some of your major commercial keywords into Google and see what your competitors are doing.
   • Are they mentioning interesting calls to action?
   • Any promotions that might inspire you?
2. Competitor keywords checked
   • Use tools like SEMRush to see what your competitors are bidding on.
   • You might notice a gap in your approach, and a keyword that you missed. 
   • You'll also be able to check if competitor's are bidding on your own brand name!
3. Competitor landing pages checked  
   1. How have your competitors designed their landing pages?
   2. How do their calls to action differ from yours?
   3. Are they offering contact options that you aren't? e.g. direct phone number?
4. Competitor reviews export
   1. Grab all of your competitor reviews from Google or other major review platforms.
   2. Paste all those reviews into ChatGPT or Google Gemini and ask them to pick out the major benefits of your competitor.
   3. Now you'll have a list of potential new angles you can use in your PPC ads.

1. PPC campaign messaging is synergized with social media & email marketing efforts.
2. Remarketing campaigns are present on other ad platforms (like Facebook and Instagram)
3. Lead nurturing is present - E.G. SMS and email flows to nurture leads toward eventually converting.
4. Your CRM and call tracking has been fully integrated into Google ads.

+ Advanced PPC audit checklist:

1. Analyze the full user conversion path to identify friction points.
2. Generate dynamic landing pages for full customization.
3. Audit the entire customer attribution journey to see which channels are having the most impact.

If you can find a way to answer 'Yes' to any of the questions below, I can guarantee this will have a bigger impact on your PPC marketing efforts than anything else...

1. Can we increase AOV (average order value)
2. Can we increase customer LTV (customer lifetime value)?
3. Can we upsell more immediately to customers?

Running a comprehensive PPC audit is absolutely key.

But if you're not also auditing your business model & revenue per customer, then you're missing out.

That's why we love to combine some elements of business analysis into our PPC audits, and it's why we strongly recommend you do the same.